had, a very short time ago, been got under, and kept under by the judicious use of lenitives; and there was reason to hope that if that salutary regimen had been steadily followed, there would have been a speedy improvement in the general health. Unhappily, the new State hygeist chose to apply irritants which have produced a succession of convulsive fits, each more violent than that which preceded it. To drop the figure, it is impossible to doubt that Lord Melbourne's government was popular with the great body of the Roman Catholics of Ireland. It is impossible to doubt that the two Viceroys whom he sent to Ireland were more loved and honoured by the Irish people than any Viceroys before whom the sword of state has ever been borne. Under the late Government, no doubt, the empire was threatened by many dangers; but, to whatever quarter the Ministers might look with uneasy apprehension, to Ireland they could always look with confidence. When bad men raised disturbances here, when a Chartist rabble fired on the Queen's soldiers, numerous regiments could, without the smallest risk, be spared from Ireland. When a rebellion broke out in one of our colonies,--a rebellion too which it might have been expected that the Irish would regard with favour, for it was a rebellion of Roman Catholics against Protestant rulers,--even then Ireland was true to the general interests of the empire, and troops were sent from Munster and Connaught to put down insurrection in Canada. No person will deny that if, in 1840, we had unhappily been forced into war, and if a hostile army had landed in Bantry Bay, the whole population of Cork and Tipperary would have risen up to defend the throne of Her Majesty, and would have offered to the invaders a resistance as determined as would have been offered by the men of Kent or Norfolk. And by what means was this salutary effect produced? Not by great legislative reforms: for, unfortunately, that Government, though it had the will, had not the power to carry such reforms against the sense of a strong minority in this House, and of a decided majority of the Peers. No, Sir; this effect was produced merely by the wisdom, justice, and humanity with which the existing law, defective as it might be, was administered. The late Government, calumniated and thwarted at every turn, contending against the whole influence of the Established Church, and of the great body of the nobility and landed gentry, yet did show a disposition to act kindly and fairly towards Ireland, and did, to the best of its power, treat Protestants and Roman Catholics alike. If we had been as strong as our successors in parliamentary support, if we had been able to induce the two Houses to follow in legislation the same principles by which we were guided in administration, the Union with Ireland would now have been as secure from the assaults of agitators as the Union with Scotland. But this was not to be. During six years an